Summary and comparison of the best foreign trade station building system and foreign trade station building source code

With the popularization of computer technology, we Self built website It's easy. There are many free or charged Foreign trade station building system and source code It can be used. It is recorded by the father Course of Foreign Trade Station Construction This article is mainly about the shared WordPress website building methods. This article summarizes what other foreign trade website building systems and source codes we can use.

Difference between foreign trade website building system and source code

If you want to build a foreign trade website by yourself, you can choose two ways: enter the foreign trade website building system platform or build your own foreign trade website building source code.

Select the station building system (platform) , e.g. shopify Wix.

they It is a website building system specially designed for friends who cannot code , you can directly register an account and select the package to start operation, You don't need to set up a website. Their system will automatically set up a website for you.

and Select website source code to build a website WordPress Joomla.

they You need to buy your own domain name and server, upload the source code for installation, and finally select your own theme and plug-in to create a perfect website.

What are the excellent foreign trade station building systems (platforms)?

These website building systems (platforms) help you solve the tedious process of domain name, server and website building. You only need to register an account, and then create a website. Using the theme template attached to them, you can quickly drag and drop to create a website. If it is an e-commerce website, it also helps you solve a series of problems such as payment and logistics interface.

Here are some of the best foreign trade station building systems.

Shopify

Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Shopify is also the name of all e-commerce platforms of the company. Shopify provides online retailers with a complete set of services "including payment, marketing, transportation and customer engagement tools to simplify the process of small merchants opening online stores". via:  Wikipedia

Shopify is the choice of many independent stations of domestic cross-border e-commerce, because it is a set of systems specialized in e-commerce. From website building to payment system, the whole process is completed for you, and you only need to pay to use it.

Official website: https://www.shopify.com/

advantage:

Shopify provides a one-stop service for novice e-commerce websites out of the box, which can help foreign trade enterprises quickly carry out online e-commerce business in the world.

Disadvantages:

In the long run, Shopify's price is a little expensive. In addition to the basic monthly fee, it also charges a transaction commission.

Wix

Wix.com is an online website creation service that allows users to create HTML5 websites by dragging and dropping tools in the website editor on their network. Users can add additional functions in their website editor, such as social network buttons, e-commerce functions, contact forms, electronic newspapers and community forums. via: Wikipedia

Wix also has many enterprise users who will not build their own websites to choose, because Wix can simply drag and drop to generate websites, and supports free use (with advertisements), and can also create online stores to sell products.

Official website: https://wix.com/

advantage:

With a Chinese official website, there are excellent templates for you to choose from, and you can also design your own pages without too much professional web knowledge.

Disadvantages:

The monthly fee is not cheap, and after the initial template is selected, it cannot be replaced with other templates, only the page content can be modified in the current template.

Weebly

Weebly is a free website hosting service, which is characterized by building websites by dragging and dropping. In Time, Weebly ranked fourth among the 50 best websites in 2007. Weebly has also been published in the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsweek. As of July 2012, Weebly has more than 12 million users, and 12% of Americans visit Weebly every month. via: Wikipedia

Weebly has an incomplete Chinese official website, as well as a free package for use. You can also enable the e-commerce function.

Official website: https://www.weebly.com/

advantage:

With free version (including an advertisement), the operation is simple and the difficulty is low.

Disadvantages:

The theme scalability is not high.

Squarespace

Squarespace is an online content management system composed of website creation tool, web hosting service and blog platform, and operated in the software as a service mode. This service allows individuals or companies to create and modify websites and blogs. Since its establishment in 2004, Squarespace has more than 500 employees in 190 countries, and millions of users create web pages on the platform. via: Wikipedia

The templates of Squarespace are rich, exquisite and bold in layout design and display space. It is very suitable for creators seeking high-quality design and functions.

Official website: https://www.squarespace.com/

advantage:

The template design style is the most cutting-edge, hundreds of templates are available for selection, easy to customize, and has great creative freedom.

Disadvantages:

After the website goes online, the template cannot be replaced.

What are the source codes for foreign trade station building?

Compared with choosing a website building platform, the ability to build a foreign trade website using the website building source code is more customizable and controllable. In some cases, the cost is much lower than using a third-party platform to build a website.

There are 6 types of source codes used most by foreign trade websites:

1. WordPress
2. Drupal
3. Joomla
4. Prestashop
5. Opencart
6. Magento

Choosing to use source code to build a website is much more complicated and requires much more effort than building a website platform. However, the website will get much higher returns when it has done a good job in cost performance ratio than building a website platform.

What is open source CMS?

The full name of CMS is Content Management System, and its Chinese name is Content Management System. The above figure shows some websites built according to CMS.

The six CMS models introduced by my father are open source. Open source CMS can be used free of charge. Open source CMS is produced and maintained by global developers and coders. Any technical personnel can make these systems better or expand their functions through their own capabilities and experience.

Of course, there is also closed source CMS corresponding to open source CMS. For example, some website building companies write their own website building programs. Closed source CMS means that the source code is not open, or the files are encrypted and need to be paid for (or not paid for). We ordinary SMEs and SOHO individuals can use open source CMS to build websites and do e-commerce and other operations.

WordPress

without doubt, WordPress is the most popular and used CMS website building system today. More than one third of global websites use WordPress drivers. Daddy's site building notes are also built using WordPress.

Simple and flexible expansion is the biggest advantage of WordPress. It contains rich theme and plug-in resources, and online tutorials and technical documents are also the most abundant. No matter how much technical knowledge you know, you can solve most problems through search.

Official website: https://wordpress.org/

advantage:

1. Rich resources, WordPress is the most abundant among the three types, whether it is technical materials or theme plug-in resources.
2. It is easy to get started, You don't need any programming knowledge, you can also use WordPress to build a beautiful website, and beginners can quickly get started.
3. Powerful plug-ins, If you don't know program code and want to implement some functions, you can find corresponding plug-in implementations for most functions in WP.
4. Beautiful theme, With WP, you can find beautiful themes for free or for a small amount of money, without paying extra for customization.
5. Low maintenance costs, If there is no other demand, there will be only hardware cost every year.
6. Strong SEO ability, WordPress is equipped with advanced SEO plug-ins, which can help ordinary users achieve many functions required by SEO Google SEO Site building program is preferred.

Disadvantages:

1. Security, Because there are many users, and more than 30% of the world's websites use WordPress, there are many hackers staring at it. In addition, there are many theme plug-ins, so the program itself, themes and plug-ins may contain vulnerabilities and be exploited by hackers. In particular, some people like to use cracked themes and plug-ins. Without security awareness, they are easy to be hacked.
2. Speed, For those who can't optimize WordPress, they will feel the WP card, especially after installing many plug-ins.
3. Update frequency, Although updates represent new functions and bug fixes, most domestic users are averse to frequent updates (many people do not update, which is likely to cause security problems).

Drupal

Drupal is an open source content management system, which is a little more difficult than WordPress. You need to have some HTML PHP and CSS skills, and its learning curve is relatively steep, which is suitable for enterprises with their own technical teams.

Official website: https://www.drupal.org/

advantage:

1. Powerful ， Drupal has strong scalability. If you have technology development, you can use Drupal to create any type of website.
2. Friendly to developers ， Technicians who can develop Drupal will be handy, but for Soho foreign traders, this is undoubtedly a disadvantage.
3. performance ， Drupal's page loading speed is the fastest among these website building programs.
4. Highly customizable ， As long as you have technical support, Drupal can be changed to "totally different".
5. Community support ， Ask questions on Drupal forums and you will usually get answers.
6. Stability and scalability ， Each version of Drupal is stable and can be used to expand and handle large websites.
7. Security ， Many government and institutional websites are built using Drupal, which is the most secure CMS system in open source programs.

Disadvantages:

1. Huge learning curve It is difficult for ordinary small white users to use Drupal well. Without certain professional knowledge, you may not use Drupal.
2. Expensive paid support ， If your Drupal website encounters technical problems, it may be difficult to find professional technicians to help you deal with them in China.
3. The theme is not beautiful ， Compared with the themes you get on WordPress and Joomla, Drupal themes are less beautiful.

Joomla

Joomla has more than 105 million downloads worldwide and has become one of the most powerful and second largest open source CMS in the industry. Joomla is between WordPress and Drupal, but it is also not friendly for novices.

Official website: https://www.joomla.org/

advantage:

1. Excellent interface ， Joomla's management interface is not only stylish and powerful, but also very easy to use. honestly, Joomla is the best of the three interfaces. This is because building and editing Joomla website is very simple and intuitive.
2. Strong developer community ， Joomla's developer community is one of the most powerful among the three top CMS. One of the main reasons is the free open source plug-ins and extensions.
3. Good flexibility ， Joomla can handle its content in more ways.

Disadvantages:

1. Difficult to get started Although not as high as Drupal's learning curve, Joomal needs to learn a wide range of things and needs more time to get familiar with them.
2. Ecologically weak ， With Joomal, it's not easy to find the right add ons or modules to customize your website.
3. Plug in compatibility ， With the upgrade of the version, you may encounter bugs in some plug-ins, but it may be difficult to solve without your PHP skills.
4. High performance requirements ， Joomla has relatively high requirements for servers, so you may need to buy better servers.

PrestaShop

PrestaShop is an open source CMS, which is widely used to establish e-commerce websites and realize online product sales. Because of the ease of use of PrestaShop technology, more than 300000 businessmen have expressed their trust in this. The installation method of PrestaShop is very simple, and it is not difficult for beginners to get started.

Official website: https://www.prestashop.com/

advantage:

1. PrestaShop is an open source e-commerce solution that provides you with out of the box functionality.
2. You can modify the PrestaShop store according to your preference.
3. PrestaShop is very lightweight, and its website speed is much faster than the e-commerce website built by WordPress.
4. The user interface is friendly.
5. The PrestaShop has optimized the search engine, so you don't have to worry about the visibility of the search engine.
6. You can set different file permissions to ensure site security.
7. PrestaShop supports multiple currencies and languages. It supports more than 65 languages and currencies.

Disadvantages:

1. If you do not have certain professional knowledge, then the degree of customization is not high.
2. The number and price of PrestaShop modules are not cheap.

OpenCart

OpenCart is another well-known source code program for open source e-commerce websites. OpenCart is a complete e-commerce solution that allows you to launch your online store within minutes.

Official website: https://www.opencart.com/

Note that the Chinese websites you search for are not official, but are owned by some domestic companies.

advantage:

1. OpenCart is very flexible and can interface with multiple payment methods.
2. With the multi store OpenCart system, you can easily manage everything.
3. You can manage important data such as products, customers, orders, and settings and configurations of multiple stores on a single console.
4. It is associated with common modes of transportation (such as Royal Mail, FedEx, USPS, etc.) to ensure timely delivery of products.
5. This open source CMS has MVC architecture.
6. You will find various extensions.

Disadvantages:

1. If you have multiple stores using the same data, you may have to face SEO problems because of the same product and name.
2. Some modules do not work properly in multi store.
3. Multi store expansion compatibility is not very good.
4. It is difficult to update the version.
5. Custom development costs are high.

Magento

Magento is the most suitable open source content management system for e-commerce business. It is one of the most powerful e-commerce solutions in the market.

But, Magento is not suitable for novices and small and micro enterprises. A company with certain technical support is required to fully master Magento.

Official website: https://magento.com/

advantage:

1. If you are running a small business, you can use the Magento community version (free version), which is really cost-effective.
2. The background interface is intuitive, and it is easy to find the functions you need.
3. Well organized open source programs.
4. Magento provides you with a powerful and secure online store.
5. It supports multiple currencies.
6. This is a multilingual platform.
7. It has great scalability.
8. You can easily modify the source code as needed.
9. Magento's vast community of users can help you in difficult times.
10. There are many paid extensions/plug-ins in Magento market, which can meet various purposes.
11. Magento store is perfect for SEO.

Disadvantages:

1. It takes time to get familiar with it, Magento has loaded many plug-ins and extensions. You need to distinguish which ones you need to use.
2. High technical requirements, you need to become a skilled Magento developer to create Magento website.
3. The advanced version of Magento is very expensive.
4. If you outsource Magento, the price is not cheap.

Summary of foreign trade station building system and source code selection

Through the analysis and introduction of this article, you can see that there are many programs (source code) on the market that can help us quickly build foreign trade websites and e-commerce websites, but how should we consider these needs?

My father's advice to everyone is that if you have no confidence in building your own website and are anxious to get the website online quickly, mainly to do e-commerce business, you can give priority to these platforms.

If you are more enterprise online display, do Google SEO optimization If you don't provide online sales or have confidence in your self-learning ability, you should give priority to building your own source code.

The station building system (platform) is faster and can be used out of the box; It is more troublesome to build the source code website, but it is more customized, and the data is completely in your own hands. Each has advantages Here are some dads Select suggestions for your reference ：

1. If you want to build a corporate website, it can be used for marketing promotion and display. Then WordPress is the first choice;
2. If you want to quickly implement e-commerce functions, Shopify is the first choice;
3. If you have a certain technical foundation and self-learning ability, WordPress+WooCommerce (e-commerce plug-in on Wordpress) is a perfect combination. After all, the use of a third-party platform will be affected by the platform rules. All the data of the self built station are their own, so you don't have to worry about being blocked.
4. If your company has strong technical support and wants to build a powerful e-commerce website, you can consider Drupal Joomla, Prestashop, Opencart, Magento and other open source programs are redeveloped.

Some related articles:

1. Steps to build your own website, from beginner to proficient
2. Cost of self built website
3. WordPress installation tutorial, use WordPress to build your own website
4. VPS recommendations that are stable and suitable for novices

Guide to Foreign Trade Station Construction